Cancer should not be a death sentence. My mom is lucky to have a good job with excellent insurance.
To date, her medical bills and prescriptions exceed $200,000. Without Obamacare, the lifetime cap for her insurance would be $750,000.
It may be out of most people’s minds, but there are still forces that are going after Obamacare. Eric Cantor wants us to tell him about #obamacareinthreewords. I can’t quite do it in three, but here they are.
What a great chance to share my story as well:
Due to some glitch in their system, my doctor’s office didn’t send me a bill for 3 years and recently I received a bill that encapsulated the entire time span. Due to a bout of abnormal paps, a heart issue, being pregnant and giving birth, and all those other things you expect such as sinus infections and treatments for stomach flu, my bills totaled over $11,000. My personal responsibility: $30.
Due to having a low enough income to qualify for state funded pregnancy care, and having a very strong group health policy through my employer, I am not looking down the barrel of $11,000 worth of debt. Because of that, instead of preparing for several years of not being able to afford to repair my car because of medical care bills, being forced to decide which bills I can pay and which need to be pushed off, struggling to pay for every pair of shoes and pants for my children, and being stressed to the point of sickness over every financial bump in the road, we are okay.
We are able to set a small amount aside each month for our kids’ college funds. They will go to college someday and their chances of being poor enough to qualify for state funded care when they are my age is much lower. I am able to take steps to break that cycle. We are able to save money to move this month to a nicer neighborhood. My kids will go to higher quality schools, and because I am closer to my place of work, my carbon footprint will be smaller. I will also have more time to prepare healthy meals at home instead of hastily purchased fast food, so my family’s chances of developing obesity and diabetes are lower.We will also have more quality time together, another proven factor in lowering the risk that my children will end up in prison, or dropping out of school.
Quality, affordable healthcare is a butterfly effect, don’t you see? The ACA may be seem expensive now, but it’s saving us so much time, money and energy in our futures. It frees up money that we would be spending on prisons and welfare, while making our society better and stronger because our *citizens* are better, and stronger.
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)


